Impressionism: Capturing Modern Light and Life

Impressionism began among a loose group of Paris-based painters repeatedly rejected by the official Salon jury, who organized an independent exhibition in April 1874 under the name Société Anonyme des Artistes. Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise (1872), shown there, prompted the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term "Impressionists" as an insult in his review, mocking the work's sketch-like unfinished appearance; the group embraced the label for the seven further exhibitions they held through 1886. Central to their approach was painting en plein air, working directly outdoors rather than finishing works in the studio, a practice made newly practical by the invention of portable, ready-mixed paint in collapsible metal tubes.